Originally Posted by Tailsnake

Actually at this point even RAM isn't usually a bottleneck. Hard drive speeds and GPUs are what bottleneck most modern systems

Once again every user is different. For me Ram is a bottleneck, and I can't upgrade because ram is soldered on the motherboard. Honestly I don't believe the GPU is the bottleneck for a typical student. If you want to game you should get a desktop with a sub par processor and a beefy GPU. To complement my air I built a 400 doller desktop, with a quad core processor 6gb of ram and a 5770 card. Gaming laptops just are not practical. You can always swap GPU's in a desktop can;t do so with a laptop.

Originally Posted by Commie8507

Once again every user is different. For me Ram is a bottleneck, and I can't upgrade because ram is soldered on the motherboard. Honestly I don't believe the GPU is the bottleneck for a typical student. If you want to game you should get a desktop with a sub par processor and a beefy GPU. To complement my air I built a 400 doller desktop, with a quad core processor 6gb of ram and a 5770 card. Gaming laptops just are not practical. You can always swap GPU's in a desktop can;t do so with a laptop.

You're right.

Also, my first University Laptop was a gaming one and it was easily one of the worst computing decisions I've ever made

Originally Posted by Commie8507

For most people the processor is never the bottleneck. People fail to understand what tasks are processor intensive. Ram and hard drive are almost always the bottlenecks. Those looking for a laptop, especially one that is a PC should go Asus, the U36 is an excellent laptop. You should also invest in a SSD, once you experience the speed of a SSD you wont be able to go back to those clunky 5400-7200rpm hard drives. Also HP is a terrible company, I owned the 15 inch envy and it essentially served as a 2000 dollar heater.

I wish I had waited a bit for the U36. I have an UL80 and it's processor isn't the strongest plus I don't get Optimus. For an ultraportable, the U36 is very nice: good balance between performance and battery life, and Asus still manages to keep it small.

On the topic of laptops, if one wanted to use a laptop just to take notes, would a netbook suffice? Or would it be better to get a full laptop?

Originally Posted by GB123

On the topic of laptops, if one wanted to use a laptop just to take notes, would a netbook suffice? Or would it be better to get a full laptop?

Better to get a lower-end laptop, netbooks are just a weird product unless you plan to use it solely for like linux programming or something.

A $400-500 asus/lenovo would be much better.

Don't buy it from best buy or FS. Look @ NCIX
http://ncix.com/
They usually have 3-5 laptops on sale every week and I'm sure one of them would be ideal for you. Plus the prices are a lot better then at BB/FS.
Also, and i3 or i5 should be more then sufficient. You can get a really great school laptop for around 6-700$ easily. Just keep checking the site for what's on sale!

Didn't even read that that the same person recommended fs/bb as the first choice for computer stores. This is the thread that keeps on giving.

i told my dad i'd break his legs if i saw him purchase anything from bestbuy

Originally Posted by RyanC

Didn't even read that that the same person recommended fs/bb as the first choice for computer stores. This is the thread that keeps on giving.

i told my dad i'd break his legs if i saw him purchase anything from bestbuy

Yeah, all about the lulz-train

LOL this is kinda funny

I trust Toshiba laptops, but for a school environment I probably would not suggest it as the batteries are generally SHIT. My 15.6" i3 runs out in about 1.5 hours on casual use. I also have an 11.6" Acer dual core C-50 with an SSD instead of a HDD which I do use for school computing. It's light, sports 4 GB, small (portable) and the SSD increases boot up time CONSIDERABLY. In total I paid $500 for it (keep in mind $200 was for the Intel 320 series 120gb SSD which I will swap out if this laptop ever breaks down).